Sights in Barcelona
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Park Güell
North of Gràcia, Park Güell is where Gaudí turned his hand to landscape gardening and the artificial almost seems more natural than the natural.
Park Güell originated in 1900 when Count Eusebi Güell bought a hillside property (then outside Barcelona) and hired Gaudí to create a miniature garden city of houses for the wealthy. The project was abandoned in 1914, but not before Gaudí had created 3km of roads and walks, steps and a plaza in his inimitable manner, plus the two Hansel-and-Gretel-style gatehouses on Carrer d’Olot.
Try coming to the park early on a weekday. On summer weekends it can be unpleasantly packed. Bus 24 drops you at an entrance near the top of …
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La Sagrada Família
If you only have time for one sightseeing outing, this should be it. La Sagrada Família inspires awe with its sheer verticality and, in the true manner of the great medieval cathedrals it emulates, it’s still not finished after more than 100 years. Work is proceeding apace, however, and it might be done between the 2020s and 2040s. If the work should be carried on is the subject of controversy, but Spain’s most visited monument was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI in late 2010. The main nave is now open for daily mass. Feathers were much ruffled by the high-speed train tunnel project, on which work began in 2010, that will pass in front of the church under Carrer de Mallo…
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Casa Batlló
If La Sagrada Família is his master symphony, then Casa Batlló is Gaudí’s whimsical waltz. The facade, sprinkled with bits of blue, mauve and green tiles, and studded with wave-shaped window frames and balconies, rises to an uneven blue-tiled roof with a solitary tower. The roof represents Sant Jordi (St George) and the dragon, and if you stare long enough at the building, it almost seems like a living being. Inside the main salon overlooking Passeig de Gràcia everything swirls. The ceiling is twisted into a vortex around a sun-like lamp. The doors, windows and skylights are dreamy waves of wood and coloured glass. The same themes continue in the other rooms and covered t…
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Montserrat
Montserrat (Serrated Mountain) is the spiritual heart of Catalonia and your best opportunity to enjoy awesome scenery on a day trip from Barcelona. Comprising a massif of limestone pinnacles rising precipitously over gorges, this wondrous place has drawn hermits (er, independent travellers) since the 5th century.
Montserrat, 50km (31mi) northwest of Barcelona, has weird rocky crags, ruined hermitage caves, a monastery and hordes of tourists from the Costa Brava. The Monestir de Montserrat was founded in 1025 to commemorate numerous visions of the Virgin Mary. Today it houses a community of about 80 monks, and pilgrims come to venerate La Moreneta (the Black Virgin), a 12t…
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Museu del Futbol Club Barcelona
One of Barcelona's most visited museums is the Museu del Futbol Club Barcelona, next to the club's giant Camp Nou stadium. Barça is one of Europe's top football clubs and its museum is a hit with fans the world over.
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Museu Picasso
Barcelona’s most visited museum occupies five of the many fine medieval stone mansions (worth wandering into for their courtyards and galleries) on narrow Carrer de Montcada. This collection is uniquely fascinating, concentrating on Picasso’s formative years and several specific moments in his later life, but those interested primarily in cubism may not be satisfied. There are additional charges for special exhibitions; entry is free from 3pm Sundays and all day the first Sunday of the month. Allow two hours. The museum’s permanent collection is housed in the first three houses, the Palau Aguilar, Palau del Baró de Castellet and the Palau Meca, all dating to the 14th cent…
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Palau de la Música Catalana
The Palau de la Música Catalana is a Modernista high point and World Heritage Site. It’s not exactly a symphony, more a series of crescendos in tile, brick, sculpted stone and stained glass. Built between 1905 and 1908 by Lluís Domènech i Montaner for the Orfeo Català musical society, it was conceived as a temple for the Catalan Renaixença, the cultural Renaissance of the late 19th century. You can see some of its splendours – such as the main facade with its mosaics, floral capitals and sculpture cluster representing Catalan popular music – from the outside and wander into the foyer to admire the lovely tiled pillars and decor of the cafe and ticket-office area. Best of …
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Fundació Joan Miró
Dedicated to one of the greatest artists to emerge in Barcelona in the 20th century, Joan Miró, this is a must-see gallery.
The foundation holds the greatest single collection of the artist’s work, comprising around 220 of his paintings, 180 sculptures, some textiles and more than 8000 drawings spanning his entire life. Only a smallish portion is ever on display. The displays tend to concentrate on Miró’s more settled last 20 years, but there are some important exceptions. The Sala Joan Prats and Sala Pilar Juncosa show work by the younger Miró that traces him slowly moving away from a relative realism towards his own signature style. Transitional works from the 1930s an…
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La Rambla
Flanked by narrow traffic lanes and plane trees, the middle of La Rambla is a broad pedestrian boulevard, crowded every day until the wee hours with a cross-section of barcelonins and out-of-towners. Dotted with cafes, restaurants, kiosks and news-stands, and enlivened by buskers, pavement artists, mimes and living statues, La Rambla rarely allows a dull moment. It takes its name from a seasonal stream (raml in Arabic) that once ran here.
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Port Olímpic
A busy marina built for the Olympic sailing events, Port Olímpic is surrounded by bars and restaurants. An eye-catcher on the approach from La Barceloneta is Frank Gehry’s giant copper Peix (Fish) sculpture. The area behind Port Olímpic, dominated by twin-tower blocks (the luxury Hotel Arts Barcelona and the Torre Mapfre office block), is the former Vila Olímpica living quarters for the Olympic competitors, which was later sold off as apartments.
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Plaça Reial & Around
Just south of Carrer de Ferran, near its La Rambla end, Plaça Reial is a traffic-free plaza whose 19th-century neoclassical facades are punctuated by numerous eateries, bars and nightspots. It was created on the site of a convent, one of several destroyed along La Rambla (the strip was teeming with religious institutions) in the wake of the Spain-wide disentailment laws that stripped the Church of much of its property.
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Catedral
You can reach Barcelona’s Catedral, one of its most magnificent Gothic structures, by following Carrer del Bisbe northwest from Plaça de Sant Jaume. The narrow old streets around the cathedral are traffic-free and dotted with occasionally very talented buskers.
The best view of the cathedral is from Plaça de la Seu beneath its main northwest facade. Unlike most of the building, which dates from between 1298 and 1460, this facade was not created until the 1870s. They say it is based on a 1408 design and it is odd in that it reflects northern-European Gothic styles rather than the sparer, Catalan version.
The interior of the cathedral is a broad, soaring space. It is di…
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Beaches
A series of pleasant beaches stretches northeast from the Port Olímpic marina. They are largely artificial but this doesn’t stop an estimated 7 million bathers from piling in every year! Each autumn, storms wash much of the sand out to sea and the town hall patiently replaces it for the following season. From 2009, a series of underwater barrages in front of some of the beaches should reduce the waves caused by these storms and save a lot of trouble. The southernmost beach, Platja de la Nova Icària, is the busiest. Behind it, across the Avinguda del Litoral highway, is the Plaça dels Champions, site of the rusting three-tiered platform used to honour medallists in the…
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Museu d'Història de Barcelona
Leap back into Roman Barcino with a subterranean stroll and then stride around parts of the former Palau Reial Major (Grand Royal Palace) on Plaça del Rei (King’s Sq, the former palace’s courtyard), among the key locations of medieval princely power in Barcelona, in what is one of Barcelona’s most fascinating museums. The square is frequently the scene of organised or impromptu concerts and is one of the most atmospheric corners of the medieval city.
Enter through Casa Padellàs, just south of Plaça del Rei. Casa Padellàs was built for a 16th-century noble family in Carrer dels Mercaders and moved here, stone by stone, in the 1930s. It has a courtyard typical of Ba…
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Palau de la Generalitat, Plaça de Sant Jaume
Founded in the early 15th century on land that had largely belonged to the city’s by-then defunct Jewish community to house Catalonia’s government, the Palau de la Generalitat was extended over the centuries as its importance (and bureaucracy) grew. Marc Safont designed the original Gothic main entrance on Carrer del Bisbe. The modern main entrance on Plaça de Sant Jaume is a late-Renaissance job with neoclassical leanings. If you wander by in the evening, squint up through the windows into the Saló de Sant Jordi and you will get some idea of the sumptuousness of the interior. If you do get inside, you’re in for a treat. Normally you will have to enter from Carrer d…
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La Pedrera
Built between 1905 and 1910 as a combined apartment and office block, this is one of Gaudí’s undisputed masterpieces. Formally called the Casa Milà, after the businessman who commissioned it, it’s better known as La Pedrera because of its uneven grey-stone facade, which ripples around the corner of Carrer de Provença. The wave effect is emphasised by elaborate wrought-iron balconies. Queues are frequent, so early morning is the best time to try to get in.
Visit the lavish top-floor flat, attic and roof, together known as the Espai Gaudí (Gaudí Space). The roof is the most extraordinary element, with its giant chimney pots looking like multicoloured sci-fi versions …
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Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya
The pompous-looking Palau Nacional, built in the 1920s for World Exhibition displays and designed to be a temporary structure, houses one of the city’s most important museums, a veritable compendium of art in Catalonia down the centuries.
The star collection is the Romanesque art but the extensive Gothic art section also contains interesting material, such as works by Catalan painters Bernat Martorell and Jaume Huguet. From the Gothic section, you pass through two eclectic private collections, the Cambò bequest and works from the Thyssen-Bornemisza collections. Works by the Venetian Renaissance masters Veronese (1528–88), Titian (1490–1557) and Canaletto (1697–1768), al…
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Palau Reial de Pedralbes
Across Avinguda Diagonal from the main campus of the Universitat de Barcelona, set in a lush, green park, is the 20th-century Palau Reial de Pedralbes, which belonged to the family of Eusebi Güell (Gaudí’s patron) until they handed it over to the city in 1926. Then it served as a royal residence – King Alfonso XIII, the president of Catalonia and General Franco, among others, have been its guests. Admission is free from 3pm Sundays and on the first Sunday of the month.
Today the palace houses two museums. The Museu de Ceràmica has a fine collection of Spanish ceramics from the 13th to 19th centuries, plus work by Picasso and Miró. The Disseny Hub is itself the fus…
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Parc d’traccions
The reason most barcelonins come up to Tibidabo is for some thrills (but hopefully no spills) in this funfair, close to the top funicular station. Among the main attractions are El Pndol, La Muntanya Russa and Hurakan. El Pndol is a giant arm holding four passengers, which drops them at a speed that reaches 100km/h in a period of less than three seconds (a force of four times gravity) before swinging outward – not for the squeamish. La Muntanya Russa is a massive new big dipper, which at its high point affords wonderful views before plunging you at 80km/h through woods. Hurakan tosses its passengers about with sudden drops and stomach-turning 360-degree turns. Far tamer o…
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Manzana de la Discordia
This is one of the most wonderful roads in Barcelona. The discord came about because various well-to-do families all wanted their houses done in the latest style and each hired a different architect. Here Gaudí, Enric Sagnier and others battle it out in bricks and mortar. Not to be missed.
On the first corner, at No 35, is Domenech i Montaner's most lavish residence, Casa Lleo Morera. Its ground floor facade was ripped out in the 1940s by philistines who wanted bigger shop windows. But the decorative nymphs and reliefs, depicting the owners work and hobbies, are still intact and the lobby is wonderfully whimsical.
Casa Batlo, at No 43, is a remodelled Gaudífied gem (remo…
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Museu Marítim
The once mighty Reials Drassanes (Royal Shipyards) are now home to the Museu Marítim, a rare work of civil Gothic architecture that was once the launch pad for medieval fleets. The museum, together with its setting, forms a fascinating tribute to the seafaring that shaped much of Barcelona’s history. You can take a load off afterwards in the pleasant restaurant-cafe. The shipyards, first built in the 13th century, gained their present form (a series of long bays divided by stone arches) a century later. Extensions in the 17th century made them big enough to handle the construction of 30 galleons at any one time. In their shipbuilding days (up to the 18th century), the sea…
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Museu de la Música
Some 500 instruments (less than a third of those held) are on show in this museum housed on the 2nd floor of the administration building in L’Auditori, the city’s main classical-music concert hall. Instruments range from a 17th-century baroque guitar through to lutes (look out for the many-stringed 1641 archilute from Venice), violins, Japanese kotos, sitars from India, eight organs (some dating to the 18th century), pianos, a varied collection of drums and other percussion instruments from across Spain and beyond, along with all sorts of phonographs and gramophones. There are some odd pieces indeed, like the buccèn, a snake-head-adorned brass instrument. Much of the…
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Museu de les Arts Decoratives, Palau Reial de Pedralbes
The Museu de les Arts Decoratives in Palau Reial de Pedralbes brings together an eclectic assortment of furnishings, ornaments and knick-knacks dating as far back as the Romanesque period. The plush and somewhat stuffy elegance of Empire- and Isabelline-style divans can be neatly compared with some of the more tasteless ideas to emerge on the subject of seating in the 1970s. It is planned eventually to house these collections in a brand-new design museum in Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes. When this will happen is open to speculation and, in the meantime, some of the collection will get a new temporary home in what was until 2008 the Museu Tèxtil i d’Indumentària in …
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Sinagoga Maj14
When an Argentine investor bought a run-down electrician’s store with an eye to converting it into central Barcelona’s umpteenth bar, he could hardly have known he had stumbled onto the remains of what could be the city’s main medieval synagogue (some historians cast doubt on the claim). Remnants of medieval and Roman-era walls remain in the small vaulted space that you enter from the street. Also remaining are tanners’ wells installed in the 15th century. The second chamber has been spruced up for use as a synagogue. A remnant of late-Roman-era wall here, given its orientation facing Jerusalem, has led some to speculate that there was a synagogue here even in Roman times…
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Hospital de la Santa Creu i de Sant Pau
Domènech i Montaner excelled himself as architect and philanthropist with this Modernista masterpiece, long one of the city’s most important hospitals. The whole complex (a World Heritage Site), including 16 pavilions, is lavishly decorated and each pavilion is unique. Among the many artists who contributed statuary, ceramics and artwork was the prolific Eusebi Arnau.
The hospital facilities have been moved to modern buildings and the historic site is slowly being restored. At the time of research, the only way to visit the Modernista hospital was by a 1¼-hour guided tour (adult/senior & student €10/5; hin English 10am, 11am, noon & 1pm), also available in Catalan, Fr…
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